No Letting Go

These boys I went to school with have a podcast. It's called The Art of Letting Go. I was hesitant to even listen to it because, like most Black women, my defenses go up when it smells like someone is even thinking about telling me to get over something. After listening to about two of their episodes, I realized something profound: in my whole life, I don't think I have ever let go of anything. I mean nothing. Not even a little. I am not a forgiver. I am not a forgetter. I hold on to old hurts like a pit bull does a meat bone. Perhaps this is why I have not experienced some of the reoccurring themes of their show such as peace and growth and happiness.
I have a full well of negative experiences that I have collected over the years that have come together to develop a Chinese wok worth of thick, dark pains and disappointments. These yuckies are on reserve for me 24/7, providing me with the comfort and support that I need to get through a day. I pull from this wok whenever I need affirmation that life sucks, that people suck, and that it will all be not okay in the end. These gritty ideas settle like grease in a coffee can (was my grandma the only one that collected old grease in a coffee can?). At the top, you can find all that good new-new negativity like the resentment I feel for my mom dying and the anger I have towards men for rejecting me  my whole, whole life. And, at the bottom, you can find those sweet, structural throwback miseries from back in the day, like being called fat by girls I wished were my friends or being mad at myself for not passing a spelling test. All this icky fills me up like a big bowl of hot beef stew on a cold night. I couldn't imagine letting any of it go. It has become my defense, my support, my man. Letting any of it go would be like removing limbs or kicking the chair from under me. What would fill me in its place?
"God's love," my new church friend Jalissa suggested at church on Sunday. Oh my God! I hadn't even thought about God! Jalissa painted a beautiful picture of God's love coming in like a sweet ray of light and cleansing me, activating the pieces of him that are already in me and leading me into a new life of grace and fulfillment. Oh man, it sounded awesome. Too bad I don't have the strong faith needed to buy into it. But I'm working on it. Sigh. No I'm not.
Later, my pain painted of picture of what it would be like not to have it as back up even for a minute. I'd be emotionally nude. Everyone would see me. I'd be raw. And who needs that?
So, unfortunately, right now, when it comes to relinquishing old sadnesses, I'm like your boy Wayne Wonder: there's no letting go.